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PipeLineNews Archives: March 2014

Coerced Shari'a Compliance And Alice In Arabia

By CHERYL GATESWORTH

March 31, 2014 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org - In early March the ABC Family Channel which is owned by Disney Studios, announced a pilot for a TV series to be titled: AliceinArabia. The project would revolve around the circumstances befalling a young girl, half Saudi, being raised in the United States in privileged circumstances. Her parents are involved in a tragic accident which claims the life of her mother and leaves her father in a coma. Subsequently she meets two Saudi relatives who convince her to come back to Saudi Arabia with them for a while and offer their private jet. When she agrees, her aunt and grandfather convince Alice to give them her passport. As soon as they arrive at her grandfather's compound in Saudi Arabia, she is told that she can never leave. Alice is a prisoner and must rely on her wits and summon her strength to devise an escape plan.

While this has become an all too common occurrence in real life, AliceinArabia was different in some of its details. Her father is a Saudi, and she considers herself to be a “good Muslim girl.” Her mixed heritage was never a source of problems for her – she treats it in a light vein. It’s unlikely, given the various rewrites that are part of bringing a pilot to broadcast readiness, and knowing the political correctness of the media, that Saudi society would be portrayed too harshly. Her grandfather's compound is shown to be luxurious. It is always possible to introduce positive characters that mitigate the severity and intolerance of Saudi society, short of reducing the series to fantasy fiction.

That was not going to be the case however because as soon as the announcement of the pilot was made and before a script with details became available, the self-appointed talking heads for the Muslim grievance industry and their sycophants began a campaign of intimidation against the network and its parent body.

The HAMAS linked Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) of course led the pack. CAIR has since its inception served as the tip of the spear when it comes to enforcing one of the core principles of the Shari’a that, neither Islam nor its prophet Mohammed should ever be insulted or criticized.

In this effort, CAIR was joined by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the American-Arab Anti-Defamation Committee (ADC). Though more PR savvy than CAIR, MPAC represents the same Islamist agenda. For example, Dr. Maher Hathout, who considers the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder Hassan Al Banna, a reformer, is the organization’s senior advisor.

Regarding the “moderation” of the ADC, consider the report that the, “59-year old Muhammad Salah, who spent nearly five years in an Israeli prison for funding the terrorist outfit, was taken off the list by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The terrorist designation prohibited Salah from obtaining employment or allegedly to make simple purchases without seeking permission from proper authorities. JTA explains the details: Two months ago, backed by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the American Friends Service Committee, he filed a lawsuit for his removal…” [source, Tiffany Gabbay, Chicago Man Convicted in Israel of Aiding Hamas Removed From U.S. Terrorist Watch-List , the Blaze].

March 10, 2014 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org - Many of Hitler’s speeches and proclamations between 1932 and 1945 have been published in a four volume book written by Max Domarus. This German author attended many rallies throughout Germany, collecting Hitler’s speeches. He also provided insights into the mind of Hitler and his intentions – valuable critical comments. An American edition was published in 1992.

Hitler wanted to conquer Czechoslovakia in 1938. He found a pretext – the fate of ethnic Germans in the eastern and northern parts of Czechoslovakia, the so-called “Sudeten Germans.” He claimed that they had been suppressed by the Czech government. He demanded that the Czech armed forces would evacuate the Sudeten German terrorities before a certain date. (See vol. II, page 1178.) British Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain wanted to accomodate Hitler and wrote him on September 23, 1938, “It being agreed in principle that the Sudeten German areas are to join the (German) Reich, the immediate question before us is how to maintain law and order pending the final settlement of the arrangements for the transfer.”

That same day, on September 23, Czech radio announced that Czech president Edvard Benes had ordered the mobilization of the army. Domarus: “For Hitler, the Czechoslovakian mobilization decree furnished a most opportune affirmation of his claim that the Prague government had never seriously considered a voluntary cession of the Sudeten German territories. He was completely certain now that he would be in a position to carry out his plan as scheduled and also have a good pretext for the launch of a military assault.” (See vol. II, page 1179.) Hitler now planned to invade Czechoslovakia on October 2. He addressed a huge crowd of Nazi fanatics in Berlin’s Sport Palace on September 26. Hitler said that he had given orders “to rearm the German Wehrmacht (=army) and to bring it to the highest level possible. Today I can openly admit: we rearmed to an extent the like of which the world has not yet seen.” (See vol. II, pages 1183, 1184.) Intimidating language meant for weak opponents and “appeasers” such as Neville Chamberlain. Hitler also said ominously: “Ten million Germans found themselves outside the boundaries of the (German) Reich… Germans who wished to return to their homeland.” (See vol. II, page 1186.)

Today, Russian president Vladimir Putin similarly claims that ethnic Russians in Ukraine want to be part of his Russian empire, his Russian “Reich” again. Putin told the Russian parliament in April 2005 that the breakup of the Soviet Union was “a real drama” which left tens of millions of Russians outside the Russian Federation. Putin developed a dangerous doctrine of armed intervention on behalf of ethnic Russians in Georgia, Ukraine and other independent states. He claims that these Russians wish to return to their homeland. There is a remarkable rearmament program in Putin’s Russia which now poses a direct threat to neighboring countries and NATO. Most NAT0 countries, including the United States, trimmed the defense budget; the Dutch do not have tanks anymore and F-16 fighter jets are outdated. Moreover, there is an undeniable Russian return to an assertive policy in the Middle East (Syria, Iran, Egypt, etc.).

Hitler: “I am the voice of three and a half million maltreated Sudeten Germans”

Hitler claimed back in September 1938 that his “leniency had reached limits” and that “the rights of three and a half Germans” and their “desires for self-determination” had been clearly defied by the Czech goverment. “I can only be the voice of my Germans,” Hitler said to his ecstatic party followers in the Berlin Sport Palace. Mr. Benes “built up a regime of terror.” “A war has been waged to exterminate the Germans,” he lambasted. “In my speech before the Reichstag (=rubber stamp parliament) on February 20 of this year, I declared that there had to be a change in the lives of the Germans living outside of the borders of the Reich.” “I am but the speaker of the Germans.” “For them I spoke, as I asserted that I am no longer willing to stand by silently without intervening as this crazed man (=Czech president Benes) continues to believe that he can maltreat three and a half million people as he sits there in Prague.” (See vol. II, pages 1187 through 1190.)

Keep Gonzales, Boot Rich Lowry

March 29, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - For a long time we have been of the opinion that Rich Lowry was impossibly in over his head at National Review.

This judgment goes back farther than March of 2005 but the following should suffice for perspective, from a piece we authored almost exactly two years ago to the day National Review - Which Side Are You On? which centered on a controversy created by the Hamas front group CAIR with the bullseye painted on National Review.

Now CAIR has mounted the head of Rich Lowry, Senior Editor of National Review, on their trophy wall, alongside that of Fox's Gail Berman and Michael Dell.

National Review was once the most hallowed of modern conservative icons; created by William F. Buckley at a time when few remembered the towering intellect of Edmund Burke.

As such, NR stood for something, alas that is no more.

Here is the controversy.

A few weeks ago CAIR began a public relations campaign against NR. They charged the magazine with complicity in promoting two books - The Life and Religion of Mohammed & The Sword of the Prophet - that were allegedly anti-Muslim.

Obama’s Plan To Destroy U.S. National Security Now Includes Scrapping Tomahawk And Hellfire Missile Programs

March 25, 2014 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – Now, it seems, things are getting personal in Obama’s 5 plus year war on an already underfunded U.S. Defense Budget. Instead of attempting to streamline the Pentagon’s notorious inefficiencies, it’s top heavy bureaucracy and Byzantine procurement process [DARPA excepted] the President is now proposing to kill two of the United States’ most effective weapons, the Tomahawk and Hellfire missile systems.

The Tomahawk is a jet powered sub-sonic missile which has been in service since 1983 and is looked upon as a primary land attack weapon. It’s capable of being configured to deliver a half-ton high explosive warhead, smaller bomblets or a 200kt nuclear device. [for complete specs please refer to BGM 109 Tomahawk, Federation of American Scientists]

The Hellfire is a smaller [100 lb.] air to ground missile designed to engage and destroy, “individual moving or stationary advanced armor, mechanized or vehicular targets, patrol craft, buildings, or bunkers while increasing aircraft survivability…” [source, . AGM 114 Hellfire, Federation of American Scientists]

That same budget shows a reduction in the Tomahawk program by over 100M in 2015, procuring only 100 units. If the administration is allowed to have its way, the Tomahawk program will end as of FY 2016.

Given the proven effectiveness of both systems, Team Obama’s proposed actions have left national security experts puzzled.

It’s an especially odd decision given the looming challenges facing the United States and in Obama’s case even harder to understand given that he used nearly 200 Tomahawks in his ill-fated Libyan campaign.

Dr. Gorka’s Prescription For Stopping Putin

March 20, 2014 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – While the West remains immobile in the face of Vlad Putin’s latest adventure in nation building, there are some sober heads who are counseling the type of reasonable, but hard-hitting counter measures which might actually halt the little dictator’s grandiose scheme.

One of these is Dr. Sebastian Gorka [Associate Dean and Associate Professor of War and Conflict Studies at National Defense University, Washington, and an Associate Fellow of SOCOM’s Joint Special Operations University] who has developed a three pronged counter-strategy in opposition to the establishment of a revitalized Soviet Empire [please refer to Dr. Sebastian Gorka, OK, So Now What? Three Ways to Staunch Russian Expansion Post-Crimea , Breitbart News]

1. Attack the financial assets of Russia’s thugocracy, especially their Cyprus based bank accounts. If the goons who keep Putin in control become displeased, Putin’s lock on power becomes highly problematic. Additionally the author suggests that a bit of cyber-warfare against the control systems of Russia’s infrastructure would be highly effective.

2. Provide the type of aid that the Ukrainians require, with Gorka suggesting that such simple items as communication technology, “we could give radios to the Ukrainians who actually like us and want to be our allies.

3. Conduct outreach to the various “Central Asian ‘Stans’” with an eye towards building solidarity against further Russian predation.

The beauty of these suggestions is that they would be effective, would occur pretty much under the radar and would not involve deploying American troops into the Ukrainian tinderbox.

The underlying determination here is crucial, despite the Western media’s near glorification of Vlad, he is as Gorka notes, “Putin was a second-rate KGB officer who is only in power because a handful of kleptocrats keep him in power.”

“…The USCMO "should be looked at as a circling of the wagons of the inner core of American Islamist organizations…If they were going to start an American Islamist political party those would be the founders. Instead they deceive Americans as an innocent 'Muslim coalition…'" [source, American Islamist Coalition Launches With Empty Rhetoric, Investigative Project on Terrorism]

USCMO is led by Oussama Jammal and is comprised of a rogue’s list of bad actors including the Council on American Islamic Relations, [CAIR] linked in Federal Court documents to HAMAS and the equally troubling Muslim American Society [MAS].

It’s really not necessary to parse the other members of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations since partnering with the likes of CAIR, MAS and Jammal paints the new group with a brush of a decidedly jihadist hue.

Introductory remarks at the PR event which launched USCMO by Jammal indicated that indeed the overarching goal of the group is political, intended to “…build Muslim citizenship rights [and a] database used to enhance political participation in upcoming elections…”

In service of this charter, USCMO intends to conduct a “census” of the American Muslim community obviously with the intention of dumping the information so gathered into this new activist database.

“Top administration officials have directed 21,000 border patrol officers to retreat whenever illegal immigrants throw rocks at them, and to avoid getting in front of foreign drug-smugglers’ vehicles as they head north with their drug shipments.

‘Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles… agents should obtain a tactical advantage in these situations, such as seeking cover or distancing themselves,’ said the instructions, issued Mar. 7, under the signature of Michael Fisher, chief of U.S. Border Patrol…”

The above is perhaps the clearest statement to come from this administration about its overall approach to national security, which of course encompasses integrity of our borders.

To say this policy is troubling is to do it a disservice, it’s mutually suicidal and treasonous, a few brief points:

1. The directive is unbelievably ill-advised, indicating that DHS has officially surrendered to those who seek to penetrate our borders, be they drug cartels or sleeper cells representing Hezbollah or other terrorist groups.

2. The new guidance counsels “retreat,” hence the U.S. Border Patrol really no longer has a reason for existing, We suggest that the agency should be defunded immediately and its $1.4B operating budget be poured down another of this administration’s rat holes, since the rats have departed from this one, that is unless it can be determined that a cadre of gun-toting paper pushers is in the national interest.

3. We also take issue with the disingenuous way this new policy is worded, especially the use of the term “tactical advantage” which actually has a well defined meaning, despite its misuse in this instance.

The country’s security experts say they have proof that the operation was directed by Iran which had engaged in an elaborate plot to hide the weapons, transporting them via, ground, sea and air intending the elaborate shuffle would fool IDF Intel.

The ordnance had been stored in Syria until commandeered by Iran which then, “flew the rockets to an Iranian air field, trucked them to a sea port, and shipped them to Iraq, where they were hidden in cement sacs. The ship then set sail from Iraq to Port Sudan, near the Sudanese-Eritrean border, on a journey expected to last some ten days…”

Of major concern is that these missiles have a range far in excess of those typically deployed by Gaza’s jihadists, being able to travel nearly 200 kilometers which could put major Israeli population centers at risk.

March 4, 2014 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – Breitbart will for the second year in a row, host a national security summit during the upcoming CPAC conference.

As opposed to last year’s rather limited resources and content, the Thursday event, Uninvited II [Westin Hotel, just around corner from the CPAC venue] will feature some of the most influential and knowledgeable experts on the national security/ foreign policy beat, among them:

Ukraine: All You Need To Know

March 3, 2014 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – Europe receives over 25% of its natural gas supply from Russia, of which about half is piped through the Ukraine.

Estimates are that the gas sales generate about $100M a day in revenues for Russia.

As a result what happens in Ukraine matters a great deal to the West.

Twice previously [starting in 2008] the Putin government has used the flow of gas to Ukraine as a weapon of submission, sending the unmistakable message that the country is dependent on its hostile neighbor which can pull the plug anytime it wishes.

Until recently this threat, along with the country’s relative isolation from what could be its European allies [allies of course in this day and age not being what they used to be] has kept the country’s nationalism in check to a degree, that was until Ukraine’s pro-Russian [read Soviet] government was toppled a week ago largely due to these internal forces.

Acting swiftly and decisively, not to mention militarily, the Putin regime has moved upwards of 15,000 troops into Ukraine’s Southern most province, Crimea, on the pretext that its population had to be protected from Ukrainian predation. Russian naval vessels are stationed off Crimea’s coast to seal it and have issued a demand for Ukraine’s navy to surrender or face further escalation [see by way of reference, the Kyiv Post].

President Obama is of course unwilling to respond, aside from his now laughably drawn “lines in the sand,” in any meaningful fashion. A few spurious warnings, more nincompoopery from Kerry and...